Grower-Shipper Association

GROWER-SHIPPER VEGETABLE ASSOCIATION 807 grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California and Local No. 890, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauf- feurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, AFL, Petitioner Employer Members of Imperial Valley, San Joaquin Valley and Yuma Valley Shippers Labor Committees and Truckdrivers, Warehousemen and Helpers Local No. 898, International Broth- erhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, AFL, Petitioner. Cases Nos. W-RC-2790 and 20- RC-2734. May 19,1955 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the Na- tional Labor Relations Act, the above-entitled cases were consolidated by order of the Regional Director for the Twentieth Region, and a hearing was held before Robert J. Scolnik, hearing officer. The hear- ing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirnmed. Upon the entire record in these cases, the Board finds : 1. The Employers are engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em- ployees of the Employers. 3. The Intervenor in Case No. 20-RC-2720 moves to dismiss the pe- tition on the ground that, as no employees in the requested unit appear to have been employed by the Employer on the date the petition was filed, the Petitioner has failed to establish a sufficient showing of in- terest in that unit. The Board administratively determined that as of the date of the hearing in this proceeding the Petitioner had established an adequate showing of interest in the total complement of employees in that unit who were hired during 1954, a substantial number of which anticipate rehiring by the Employer in 1955. Under these circum stances, we conclude that the Petitioner has satisfied the Board's administrative requirements respecting the showing of interest. We find without merit the Intervenor's contention that the Board's de- cision in Holly Sugar Company, 94 NLRB 1209, requires the dismissal, for lack of adequate showing, of petitions filed during periods of shut- down in seasonal industries. In that case, the Board dismissed the petition for an inadequate showing of interest where the petitioner, by its own admission had at no time prior to or at the hearing made any showing of interest in the unit. The facts of that case are thus clearly distinguishable from those of the instant one. Nor do we find any 112 NLRB No. 102. 808 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD equitable reason for a holding such as that for which the Intervenor contends, as in our opinion it would unduly hamper the free selection of bargaining representatives in seasonal industries by attaching to the filing of petitions for certification of representatives a restriction which not only ignores the practical problems respecting bargaining in seasonal industries, but which at the same time in nowise furthers the purposes and policies of the Act. The motion is accordingly denied. The motion to dismiss by the Intervenor in Case No. 20-RC-2734, based on the same ground, is likewise denied, the Board having been administratively satisfied that the Petitioner had an adequate showing of interest among the employees in the unit requested at the time the petition was filed. Accordingly, we find that questions affecting commerce exist con- cerning the representation of employees of the Employers within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The only dispute concerning the units herein requested is with respect to the inclusion, in the unit requested in Case No. 20-RC-2720, of employees engaged in processing spinach, cauliflower, peppers, radishes, and onions. The Employer contends that the unit here in issue should be coextensive in scope with that for which the Intervenor was certified by the Board, save for the addition of whatever new cate- gories might have been negotiated since that date, and that, as the processing of the aforementioned vegetables commenced subsequent to the certification, the employees therein engaged are properly subjects for future negotiations, rather than for inclusion in the unit at this time. The Intervenor in that case contends that these employees should be included in the unit, and the Petitioner has no objection thereto. The majority of the employees involved in this dispute also spend substantial amounts of their time in packing vegetables covered by the certification and appear to enjoy substantially the same condi- tions of employment as other employees. Under these circumstances, we perceive no cogent reason, nor does the Employer offer one, for ex- cluding them from the unit which we herein find appropriate. We therefore find the Employer's contention without merit, and we shall include them in the unit. Accordingly, we find that all packingshed employees of the Em- ployer in Case No. 20-RC-2720,2 covering lettuce, carrots, topped car- rots, celery, broccoli, chicory or endive, cabbage. spinach, cauliflower, "Employer Members of Imperial Valley Snappers Labor Committee, et al., 92 NLRB 533. Employees engaged in packing cabbage were later added to the unit by negotiation. a The term "Employer" as used in this case refers to those companies which are set forth in Appendix "A" of the 1953 Packing House Agreement between Grower -Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California and United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Workers Local Industrial Union #78, affiliated with the CIO , and any other employers who at the time of the eligibility date of the election have authorized the aforesaid Association to represent them. GROWER-SHIPPER VEGETABLE ASSOCIATION 809 peppers, radishes, and onions, and excluding office clerical employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit ap- propriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the mean- ing of Section 9 (b) of the Act. We further find that all packingshed employees of the Employer in Case No. 20-RC-2734,3 covering lettuce, carrots, topped carrots, pre- packaged celery and carrots, celery, broccoli, chicory or endive, cab- bage, and melons, and excluding office clerical employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. 5. In Case No. 20-RC-2734, the parties agree that an election in the appropriate unit should be held during the last 2 weeks in June 1955, during which time they predict there will be peak employment in the packinghouses of the Employers' members. In Case No. 20-RC-2720, the parties disagree as to when the election should be held. The Peti- tioner contends that the election should be held, if possible, at the same time as the election in Case No. 20-RC-2734 or during the first week of July 1955; the Employer and the Intervenor contend that the election should be held at a later date, the Employer stating that it should be held between the end of August and the first of November 1955, and the Intervenor, that it should occur during the fall peak of employment. In the past, there appear to have been roughly two peak seasons: in the spring and in the fall; however, inasmuch as lettuce, which was largely responsible for the spring peak, is not, in 1955, ex- pected to constitute as important an item as formerly, due to techno- logical changes resulting in reduced amounts of packaged lettuce, it is expected that the largest employment peak will occur during August, September, or October. However there is evidence that the em- ployee complement during June and July would nevertheless be rep- resentative. Under these circumstances, we shall direct that both elections here- in be conducted on or after the first of June 1955, at a time or times when, in the judgment of the Regional Director, there are employed in each respective unit a maximum or near-maximum representative complement of employees on the respective Employer's payrolls dur- ing the payroll periods immediately preceding the respective dates of the Regional Director's notice of elections. [Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication.] 3 The term "Employer," as used in this case refers to those companies which are set forth in Appendix "A" to the 1953 Packing House Agreement, Vegetables and Melons, between the Imperial Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and Yuma Valley Shippers' Labor Committees and the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Works Local Industrial Union #78, affiliated with the CIO , and by any other employers who at the time of the eligibility date of the election have authoiized the aforesaid employer organization to represent them